3D-Maps-Minus-3D allows you to browse one of the major online satellite 3D-maps, but with all of the 3D-information removed. What's left is texture maps: two-dimensional images used by computer software to add color information to the 3D model. We know these texture maps from seeing them wrapped around the 3D models of buildings, roads, skyscrapers, trees, hills, and topography. Here they are presented as is— flat 2D images— as they exist before they are parsed by the computer to produce the illusion of 3D space. […]

These images are not made for humans to look at. They are meant to be seen and parsed by computers. They may look like glitched maps, disaster scenes, cubist collages, but these images are produced for other computers to use—to apply color and texture to 3d forms. These images are efficient vectors of information. But unlike a long list of 1s and 0s, or some other cold alien encoding, they still look like the objects they represent. They are uncannily close to photographs or human made collages.